Why I am an Agnostic

[Husker_x]

The following is a series of shortened excerpts from one of my favorite essays ever written on religion––Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll's (1833 – 1899) "Why I am an Agnostic". Before there was Hitchens or Harris or Dawkins there was Thomas Paine, and then Robert Ingersoll. I think the most amazing feature of this is how readable it is even after a century or two. It could have been written yesterday. His collected works can be accessed freely here and go here for a direct link to the full article abridged below.

 

Enjoy!

 

Like the most of you, I was raised among people who knew -- who were certain. They did not reason or investigate. They had no doubts. They knew that they had the truth. In their creed there was no guess -- no perhaps. They had a revelation from God. They knew the beginning of things. They knew that God commenced to create one Monday morning, four thousand and four years before Christ. They knew that in the eternity -- back of that morning, he had done nothing. They knew that it took him six days to make the earth -- all plants, all animals, all life, and all the globes that wheel in space. They knew exactly what he did each day and when he rested. They knew the origin, the cause of evil, of all crime, of all disease and death.

 

They not only knew the beginning, but they knew the end. They knew that life had one path and one road. They knew that the path, grass-grown and narrow, filled with thorns and nettles, infested with vipers, wet with tears, stained by bleeding feet, led to heaven, and that the road, broad and smooth, bordered with fruits and flowers, filled with laughter and song and all the happiness of human love, led straight to hell. They knew that God was doing his best to make you take the path and that the Devil used every art to keep you in the road.

 

They knew that there was a perpetual battle waged between the great Powers of good and evil for the possession of human souls. They knew that many centuries ago God had left his throne and had been born a babe into this poor world -- that he had suffered death for the sake of man -- for the sake of saving a few. They also knew that the human heart was utterly depraved, so that man by nature was in love with wrong and hated God with all his might.

 

At the same time they knew that God created man in his own image and was perfectly satisfied with his work. They also knew that he had been thwarted by the Devil, who with wiles and lies had deceived the first of human kind. They knew that in consequence of that, God cursed the man and woman; the man with toil, the woman with slavery and pain, and both with death; and that he cursed the earth itself with briers and thorns, brambles and thistles. All these blessed things they knew. They knew too all that God had done to purify and elevate the race. They knew all about the Flood -- knew that God, with the exception of eight, drowned all his children -- the old and young -- the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe -- the young man and the merry maiden -- the loving mother and the laughing child -- because his mercy endureth forever. They knew too, that he drowned the beasts and birds -- everything that walked or crawled or flew -- because his loving kindness is over all his works. They knew that God, for the purpose of civilizing his children, had devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of fire, killed some with his lightnings, millions with famine, with pestilence, and sacrificed countless thousands upon the fields of war. They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

 

All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a moral and honest life -- to keep your contracts, to take care of wife and child -- to make a happy home -- to be a good citizen, a patriot, a just and thoughtful man, was simply a respectable way of going to hell.

 

God did not reward men for being honest, generous and brave, but for the act of faith. Without faith, all the so-called virtues were sins. and the men who practiced these virtues, without faith, deserved to suffer eternal pain.

 

All of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the ministers in their pulpits -- by teachers in Sunday schools and by parents at home. The children were victims. They were assaulted in the cradle -- in their mother's arms. Then, the schoolmaster carried on the war against their natural sense, and all the books they read were filled with the same impossible truths. The poor children were helpless. The atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies -- lies that mingled with their blood.

 

In those days ministers depended on revivals to save souls and reform the world. The sermons were mostly about the pains and agonies of hell, the joys and ecstasies of heaven, salvation by faith, and the efficacy of the atonement. The little churches, in which the services were held, were generally small, badly ventilated, and exceedingly warm. The emotional sermons, the sad singing, the hysterical amens, the hope of heaven, the fear of hell, caused many to lose the little sense they had. They became substantially insane. In this condition they flocked to the "mourner's bench" -- asked for the prayers of the faithful -- had strange feelings, prayed and wept and thought they had been "born again." Then they would tell their experience -- how wicked they had been -- how evil had been their thoughts, their desires, and how good they had suddenly become.

 

The ministers, who preached at these revivals, were in earnest. They were zealous and sincere. They were not philosophers. To them science was the name of a vague dread -- a dangerous enemy. They did not know much, but they believed a great deal. To them hell was a burning reality -- they could see the smoke and flames. The Devil was no myth. He was an actual person. a rival of God, an enemy of mankind. They thought that the important business of this life was to save your soul -- that all should resist and scorn the pleasures of sense, and keep their eyes steadily fixed on the golden gate of the New Jerusalem. They were unbalanced, emotional, hysterical, bigoted, hateful, loving, and insane. They really believed the Bible to be the actual word of God -- a book without mistake or contradiction. They called its cruelties, justice -- its absurdities, mysteries -- its miracles, facts, and the idiotic passages were regarded as profoundly spiritual. They dwelt on the pangs, the regrets, the infinite agonies of the lost, and showed how easily they could be avoided, and how cheaply heaven could be obtained. They told their hearers to believe, to have faith, to give their hearts to God, their sins to Christ, who would bear their burdens and make their souls as white as snow.

 

---

 

It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt.

 

But in the old days the good people justified Jehovah in his treatment of the heathen. The wretches who were murdered were idolaters and therefore unfit to live.

 

According to the Bible, God had never revealed himself to these people and he knew that without a revelation they could not know that he was the true God. Whose fault was it then that they were heathen?

 

The Christians said that God had the right to destroy them because he created them. What did he create them for? He knew when he made them that they would be food for the sword. He knew that he would have the pleasure of seeing them murdered.

 

As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah said that all these horrible things happened under the "old dispensation" of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now under the "new dispensation," all had been changed -- the sword of justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old Testament, they said. God is the judge -- but in the New, Christ is the merciful. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is infinitely worse than the Old. In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain. Jehovah had no eternal prison -- no everlasting fire. His hatred ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his enemy was dead.

 

In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal.

 

The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told his disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and yet we are told that this same God, with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish words; "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

 

These are the words of "eternal love."

 

No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror.

 

All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood, -- all the pangs and pains of every disease and every death -- all this is as nothing compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul.

 

This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice of God -- the mercy of Christ.

 

---

 

 

This God must be, if he exists, a person -- a conscious being. Who can imagine an infinite personality? This God must have force, and we cannot conceive of force apart from matter. This God must be material. He must have the means by which he changes force to what we call thought. When he thinks he uses force, force that must be replaced. Yet we are told that he is infinitely wise. If he is, he does not think. Thought is a ladder -- a process by which we reach a conclusion. He who knows all conclusions cannot think. He cannot hope or fear. When knowledge is perfect there can be no passion, no emotion. If God is infinite he does not want. He has all. He who does not want does not act. The infinite must dwell in eternal calm.

 

It is as impossible to conceive of such a being as to imagine a square triangle, or to think of a circle without a diameter.

 

Yet we are told that it is our duty to love this God. Can we love the unknown, the inconceivable? Can it be our duty to love anybody? It is our duty to act justly, honestly, but it cannot be our duty to love. We cannot be under obligation to admire a painting -- to be charmed with a poem -- or thrilled with music. Admiration cannot be controlled. Taste and love are not the servants of the will. Love is, and must be free. It rises from the heart like perfume from a flower.

 

For thousands of ages men and women have been trying to love the gods -- trying to soften their hearts -- trying to get their aid.

 

The nations perished. The gods died. The toil and wealth were lost. The temples were built in vain, and all the prayers died unanswered in the heedless air.

 

Then I asked myself the question: Is there a supernatural power -- an arbitrary mind -- an enthroned God -- a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world -- to which all causes bow?

 

I do not deny. I do not know -- but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme -- that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken -- that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer -- no power that worship can persuade or change -- no power that cares for man.

 

I believe that with infinite arms Nature embraces the all -- that there is no interference -- no chance -- that behind every event are the necessary and countless causes, and that beyond every event will be and must be the necessary and countless effects.

 

Man must protect himself. He cannot depend upon the supernatural -- upon an imaginary father in the skies. He must protect himself by finding the facts in Nature, by developing his brain, to the end that he may overcome the obstructions and take advantage of the forces of Nature.

 

Is there a God?

 

I do not know.

 

Is man immortal?

 

I do not know.

 

One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

 

We wait and hope.

[huskertim]

That is eloquent, you can really sense the writters internal conflict and the futility of his experience. Very solid read, Thanks X.

[Husker_x]

That is eloquent, you can really sense the writters internal conflict and the futility of his experience. Very solid read, Thanks X.

 

Glad you enjoyed it.

 

I don't know what it is, but it seems like the level of rhetoric (in the good sense of the word) has taken a turn for the worse in the past century or so. Even reading some of the more famous preachers from the 17/1800s makes you go, "Whoah."

 

Then again, Thomas Paine was seen as a barbarian in his day because of the 'common' way he wrote. To me he's the guild master of the well-constructed polemic. Funny how that works.

[HuskersNow]

I encourage everyone to read the entire essay. It's quite good.

[MCAT800]

So X are you an atheist or agnostic?? One post I see you state you are an atheist and here agnostic. Didn't think you could be both.

[Husker_x]

So X are you an atheist or agnostic?? One post I see you state you are an atheist and here agnostic. Didn't think you could be both.

 

It's a very common misconception, but yes you can be both an atheist and an agnostic. The commonly held error is that you have theism and atheism on opposite ends of a spectrum and agnosticism is a kind of middle road between them. This isn't really the case. Theism/atheism and gnosticism/agnosticism are addressing different issues, the first belief and the second what you know or claim to know. I am an agnostic atheist because I do not hold a belief in God or gods, but I do not claim to know if they exist or don't exist.

 

I posted this graphic in another thread but will post it here again. Hope it clarifies things.

 

[jnkyrdoff6]

This really was a pretty good read. Prior to this, I'd always clicked on the link, seen the length of the article and clicked BckSpce. I'm glad I finally read it though. I've been told Thomas Paine wasn't considered to be a very bright man in his time. I think his writing style reflects that of American culture more so than a lot of other 17-1800 American writers I've read. Maybe he was just a trendsetter

[MCAT800]

So X are you an atheist or agnostic?? One post I see you state you are an atheist and here agnostic. Didn't think you could be both.

 

It's a very common misconception, but yes you can be both an atheist and an agnostic. The commonly held error is that you have theism and atheism on opposite ends of a spectrum and agnosticism is a kind of middle road between them. This isn't really the case. Theism/atheism and gnosticism/agnosticism are addressing different issues, the first belief and the second what you know or claim to know. I am an agnostic atheist because I do not hold a belief in God or gods, but I do not claim to know if they exist or don't exist.

 

I posted this graphic in another thread but will post it here again. Hope it clarifies things.

 

 

Oh okay, I thought an agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time. And a atheist is one who is convinced that God does not exist.

[zoogs]

A question for all the theists out there: would you say you are "sure" that God exists, or would you say that you "acknowledge that we don't know for sure?"

 

The definitions confused me at first, but I think the axis makes perfect sense.

 

I always thought that everyone (or almost everyone) acknowledged that "you can't know for sure", regardless of what they believed. Maybe I'm wrong on this.